Rockville QB's big day leads Rams

Junior leads his team past Wheaton on way to 1,306 yards this year

Rockville High School wide receiver Anthony Albert runs after he catches a long throw during the second half of Rockville's game against Wheaton on Saturday.

After throwing for 944 yards in Rockville High School's first three football games this season, it was a good bet quarterback Chuck Reese would throw for a lot against Wheaton on Saturday.

Reese threw for 362 yards, six touchdown passes and no interceptions to spoil Wheaton's final homecoming game at Richard D. Riddle Stadium Saturday afternoon with a 54-22 victory. The junior has thrown for 1,306 yards this year, second in Montgomery County to Thomas S. Wootton's Sam Ellis.

“Knowing it was their homecoming game you have to go out there and show what you're made of,” Reese said. “You want to silence their whole crowd and prove that you're better than them — just disrupt their entire homecoming.”

Reese and the Rams were able to do just that.

Wheaton grabbed the first points of the contest after tailback Dominyck Sims scored from 7 yards out with 9 minutes and 50 seconds to play in the second quarter. After the Knights took a 6-0 lead, the game was all Rockville the rest of the way.

“It's upsetting,” Sims said of the homecoming loss. “We could have won — we should have won — but we didn't come back in the second half and do what we were supposed to do.”

The Rams answered with a scoring drive of their own. Running back Tony Emeche capped off an 11-play, 65-yard drive with a 2-yard touchdown run and Reese completed the two-point conversion pass to Spencer Brigman to give Rockville an 8-6 advantage. Rockville never trailed after that.

After a Wheaton three-and-out late in the first half Reese needed just one play to widen the margin. The junior tossed a 57-yard score to wide out Anthony Albert for his second touchdown pass of the game.

Reese tacked on two more scores in the third quarter, both with Brigman on the receiving end.

“It's so much fun,” Brigman said of playing in an up-tempo offense. “Practices — we just never stop running — and after every single game coach always asks us if we're tired and you know, we're not. It feels really good.”

In the fourth quarter he added two more touchdowns through the air, with Joey Cornwell hauling in each of them.

Brigman and Cornwell both finished the game with more than 100 yards receiving.

“That was just the regular offense keeping it going,” Reese said when asked if the Rams were trying to run up the score. “Our goal was to put up 50 (points). We put up 50.”

Dominyck Sims put the Knights within two after a 71-yard scamper made the game 16-14 with 2:40 left in the first half. Wheaton could not keep up with the Rockville hurry-up offense however, which scored another touchdown with 45 seconds left before halftime.

Sims rushed for 149 yards in the first half on 15 carries but the Rockville defense slowed him down after the break.

“We knew coming in that we were going to have to control the ball running the clock and we just weren't able to do that offensively,” Wheaton coach Ernest Williams said. “It was more about what we didn't do offensively than what we did defensively.”